GPS Business News: can you briefly introduce us to TechnoCom?
Janice Partyka: We have been in business since 1995 doing wireless location testing. At first we have been testing various location technologies and conducting trials with the carriers to help them implement the E911 mandates in the United States. To make it simple,we put probes in their network and calculate the difference between true location and their network. Our key product is called Location Assurance Manager and it helps operators to identify trouble spots and to report the quality of service experienced by the subscriber.
GPS BN:What is the size of the business? What can you tell me about TechnoCom?
JP:We are a privately-held company so I am not allowed to give you a lot of information;however,what I can tell you is that we are testing location for networks with a total footprint of 140 million wireless subscribers. We have been profitable for 14 years. The company is based in Los Angeles and our development team is in Carlsbad,California a hot spot for wireless engineers.
JP:This is correct. SpotOn is based on the amAze application from LocatioNet. Our idea here is to use navigation as a platform for marketing and advertising. Research shows that after text messages,turn-by-turn navigation is the most used application on mobile phones in the US. We want to use this as a vector for marketing and advertising.
SpotOn is a comprehensive off-board navigation,local search and mapping product. Map data is coming from NAVTEQ and we have also set up a partnership with Yellow Pages. The advertising messages are displayed during idle moment when the application is running a search or downloading map data.
With SpotOn we are focusing on the affinity market. When I mean affinity market I think about communities such as members of an airline card program. If you look at that particular example the card program will be able to highlight places – such as hotels –partnering with the program where you can win mileage points. The customer will get coupons from airline partners,value messages,etc. The application can also be tied to web services already provided by the company. In addition to the messages of the brand running the program we can also plug in a third party aggregator for advertising. This is a very customizable and flexible platform.
JP:We are in talks with a lot of companies right now. This includes credit card companies,because they have a lot of partners they would like to cross promote. There are also hobbyist organizations which have strong communities. There are also the automotive brands and large retailers. And also not forget that historically carriers have been our customers. So we have been showing it to them
GPS BN: For how long have you been working on that project and when do you expect to sign up the first customer?
JP: We have been working on the project for about a year now. We have officially launched it last month. We have a lot of business conversations happening right now so I am confident we will have something to announced whether in August or in September.
GPS BN: thank you for your time.
JP: My pleasure.